Ja. It ran just under five and a half hours instead of the estimated six, and it seemed shorter than that. Jay Hunter Morris is one helluva singer. His voice cracked slightly on a high note toward the end of the first act, but he came back to sing even higher notes with no trouble at all, and he finished strong. (It was amusing to learn that offstage Siegfried speaks with a Texas drawl. ) The scene with the bird was charming, a word not ordinarily applied to Wagner. The projected bird was voice-activated, so when the soprano sang, the bird's beak opened and closed. That machine set (mechanical planks) continues to amaze me with its versatility. But Aunt Brünnhilde and nephew Siegfried eventually got together, the stage is set for Twilight Time, and I've got a nice Wagner buzz going right now.

The Ring makes the Medici family look positively chaste. Go back a generation...Siegmund and Sieglinde are half brother and sister...Wotan seems to have had a thing about keeping it "all in the family."

Actually, Kay, Siegfried's parents are full brother and sister. (It's Brünnhilde who is their half-sister.) One might be tempted to blame it on ancient mythology, but actually in the Siegfried myths with which I'm familiar, Sieglinde (or however the character is named in a particular version) is rescued from her marriage by her brother, but has a baby with someone else (a king she eventually marries, I think). Wagner, as ever, tightened the situation and eliminated/combined characters.